Pastorale

Directed by acclaimed Georgian filmmaker Otar Iosseliani, Pastorale is a wry and lyrical drama that explores the culture clash between a group of sophisticated string musicians from Tbilisi and a remote rural village in Georgia. It serves as a stark, anti-idyllic critique of both Soviet-era country life and the disconnect of the urban elite.

The film begins as a young Tbilisi string quartet rent an attic room, from a peasant family in their untarnished remote village, to rehearse in peace. Instead of presenting a romanticised version of rural life, Iosseliani highlights the mundane struggles of the peasants, the disruptive presence of the pretentious musicians and the divide between town and country.

The Soviet regime found the film not ‘edifying’ and it exposed bureaucracy, portraying industrial productivity demands as the primary hazard to the village’s peace. It therefore had a limited release and it wasn’t until 1982 that it was seen in the West, in the Forum of New Cinema at the Berlin International Film Festival, winning a FIPRESCI prize and an International Critics’ award. It was soon after his success in Berlin that Iosseliani moved to Paris.